Mistress No More

by Niobia Bryant

  “Yes, Mr. Pine.”

  Jaime paused at the deep voice. A brotha. “Actually, this is his daughter, Jamison. Are you Cole Jennings . . . my attorney,” she asked, glancing over her shoulder to be sure her father was preoccupied.

  “Yes, I am. I wasn’t expecting to speak to you today.”

  Jaime smirked. “You probably weren’t expecting to speak to me at all,” she quipped.

  He chuckled.

  “Listen, I need you to e-mail me a settlement arrangement and let me approve them or make suggestions . . . because no one knows what I want or deserve like me.”

  “Okay, anything else?”

  Jaime felt stronger, mentally and physically. Life is what you make it, Jaime, so fuck it; make it about you.

  “Yes, from now on my father is out of my business and out of the loop,” she told him, feeling like she could tear off her going-to-church cardigan and burn it.

  “Should I send you my bill then?”

  Jaime arched a brow. “No,” she stressed. “Now, my degree isn’t pre-law but—true or not true—your expenses can be covered as part of the settlement arrangement?”

  He sighed. Jaime’s frown deepened.

  “Your father and I have a lot of business ties outside of your divorce matter. Let me speak to him first and then—”

  “Oh hell no,” Jaime snapped.

  “Oh my word.”

  She whirled around as an older woman made a face and hurried past her. “Sorry,” she said even though she turned her back on the woman.

  “Mrs. Livewell, let’s make an appointment for you and your father to come in to my office tomorrow morning?” he offered.

  Jaime rolled her eyes. “I’ll call you back,” she said, watching her father motioning to her that it was time to go inside.

  She snapped the phone closed and made her way to them. “Bathroom break. I’ll see you inside,” she said, turning to walk up the driveway and into the side entrance to the church.

  Once she married Eric she attended his church, but she was baptized and reared in the Church of Distinction. The minister of the last three years was new to her but the church was not. She was grateful for the air-conditioning as she made her way down the stairs to the basement and turned the corner leading to the ladies’ room.

  The sounds of the organ music filled the church as Jaime used the facilities and then washed her hands. She studied her reflection in the mirror.

  Not to fluff her hair or arrange her clothing or even to check her makeup.

  “Who are you?” she asked her reflection softly, tapping her hand against the vanity as she crossed one slender ankle over the other.

  Her parents’ daughter. Eric’s wife. Pleasure’s trick. Jessa’s fool. Lucas’s one-night stand. And now her parents’ charity case.

  Every step of the time line of her life was about somebody else. She’d thought her “relationship” with Pleasure was empowering her when in truth she’d let his dick whip her into submission. She paid but he controlled.

  Jaime left the restroom and climbed the stairs to the main church. She joined the line of people entering the church, seeing her mother turned around in the pew and looking for her. She was just sitting down next to her mother when her cell phone vibrated.

  Jaime looked down inside her pocketbook as she opened an incoming text. The sight of a glistening wet and hard as steel dick made her jump in her seat.

  Several people looked around at her. She ignored them, looking back down in her purse at the words below the pic.

  Cum and get it?

  Pleasure.

  Sunday was usually their day and she would work him and his dick for every red cent she paid him.

  Even as her pussy throbbed and she crossed her legs to press down on it, she snapped the phone closed, resolving to kick her addiction. She hadn’t called him since he left her pussy high and dry in the strip club that night.

  She paid, but he controlled.

  Jaime knew that in all aspects of her life, she had to get like Janet and get some more control.

  ASAP.

  Richmond Hills’s Architectural and Landscaping Committee didn’t play around. Nothing about the stately entrance showed evidence that Renee had crashed into the front exit gate. Everything was back in place. The gate repaired. The once-missing landscape replaced. And she knew the bill had been promptly sent to Renee and if she’d failed to pay the bill, the fines would accrue, and the committee had every right to place a levy against her home.

  As Jaime pulled up to the control box and entered her passcode, she made a mental note to talk to Aria about that.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hall, but your passcode no longer works,” Lucky said through the window of the security booth.

  I really hate Eric, she thought. “Of course. I’m sorry. Just call Mrs. Livewell,” she said in an authoritative tone, slightly embarrassed.

  “Right away.”

  Soon the gates of Richmond Hills opened and Jaime cruised through, ignoring Lucky’s wave. She still had plenty bougie in her.

  As she drove to Aria and Kingston’s home she avoided looking at her old house or Jessa Bell’s up the street. Now her husband and friend could really get it on. They did as much under everyone’s noses.

  Aria walked out onto the porch as Jaime parked in the drive behind her SUV. “Oh Lord, Pollyanna’s back,” she teased.

  Jaime smiled. “You can stick these pearls where the sun don’t shine on you.”

  Aria made a playful face. “Looks like you pulled the stick out of your dark spot,” she said. “The old Jaime would’ve got offended and made a prune face.”

  She shrugged. “Just trying to get my ish together, as you would say.”

  “Aren’t we all,” Aria said sadly.

  “Kingston is still at his parents’?” Jaime asked.

  Aria nodded and leaned her back against the column. “Yup. He is so mad at me.”

  “Because the news didn’t come from you,” Jaime said, turning her eyes up the street to lock on Jessa’s home. “It was your business to tell. Not hers.”

  “Trust and believe that restraining order is the ONLY thing keeping me from digging in that ass,” Aria said.

  Jaime thought back to the day Jessa had sent the message and the hell they all went through waiting and wanting to know which husband had strayed with their friend. Jaime never wanted to feel like that again. Lost in the sauce and mad confused. The waiting game was hell.

  And then to find out it was she that had been betrayed.

  “All of this is Jessa Bell’s fault,” Jaime said, the anger in her voice barely contained.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I hate the bitch. But we created our own secrets. Told our own lies. We gave her the power to destroy us.”

  Jaime looked up at Aria, incredulous. “Because she was our friend, Aria. We trusted a friend.”

  They both looked back down the street at Jessa’s house.

  “I know Mark is spinning in his grave,” Aria said.

  “Yeah, I bet,” Jaime agreed softly.

  They fell silent for a moment. Jaime knew her thoughts were on the man who passed on way too soon but was a fun, friendly, and loyal presence during his time. A man who didn’t deserve for his legacy to be marred by a whoring widow.

  “Think Eric is in there?” Jaime asked.

  “Do you care?” Aria countered.

  She really didn’t. “That man put me through hell and I helped him by sitting there taking it, pretending that we were fine. Hell, better than fine.”

  “We all did some pretending, sugar,” Aria said in a Southern drawl that was completely random.

  The two friends looked at each other and then laughed.

  But Jaime’s eyes were drawn back to Jessa’s house. “It just doesn’t feel right that she gets to live here and I’m in some second-rate town house,” Jaime admitted, surprised by her own truthfulness. “What nerve does she have—after everything she put us all through—to move back.”

>   “Man, Jessa Bell is straight crazy,” Aria said, making a fist. “And I have all the psych meds she needs in this left and this right.”

  Jaime shook her head. “No, I’m serious. What the hell is she thinking?” she asked, even as she moved down the steps.

  “Jaime. Hello, Jaime. Where are you going?” Aria called out behind her.

  “To have the conversation Jessa and I should have had a long time ago,” she said over her shoulder with her eyes locked on Jessa’s door.

  The appropriate thing to do was to continue to ignore her. Say nothing. Tilt her head up high and walk past her like she never existed.

  Fuck that.

  Jaime’s steps paused as Jessa’s front door opened before she even reached it. Still playing games, she thought, continuing up the walkway to stand before the door.

  She looked over her shoulder at Aria standing in the middle of the street, looking like one wrong move and she would say to hell with the restraining order. Jaime closed the door as she stepped inside the foyer.

  “I’m in the living room,” Jessa called out.

  Jaime headed that way, noticing that Jessa’s home was back to being fully furnished. The bitch and whoever she hired has been busy.

  Jessa was just lounging on the sofa in front of the windows. She was dressed in an all-white strapless jumpsuit, her ebony hair loosely twisted atop her head, a glass of wine in her hand.

  Even in such casual attire, with her face free of makeup, the bitch was stunning.

  “I was watching you while you both were watching my home,” Jessa said, her slanted ebony eyes locked on Jaime. “Your friend looks ready to pounce . . . again.”

  “You used to be our friend but that . . . was that . . . an act?” Jaime asked, leaning against the wall, her head cocked to the side as she looked at this woman who deserved a beatdown to top all beatdowns.

  “Listen, Jaime, I regret getting involved with Eric,” she said. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  Jaime laughed bitterly. “Bitch, please. An apology cannot erase the miles you put on my husband’s dick.”

  Jessa pressed her elbows into the cushions of the chair and then her chin in her hands. “You sound so possessive? If you’re here to let me know that you two have reconciled I’m tickled pink for you.”

  Jaime crossed her arms over her chest as she strolled farther into the room. “Is my husband here? I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

  “Listen, Jaime, Eric is not welcome here so please don’t stalk my house looking for your husband,” Jessa drawled, crossing her legs at the ankle.

  Jaime arched a brow as she eyed her. Hard. “You’re so fucking carefree about wrecking lives. So blasé about your bullshit. Nothing but a pretty package wrapped around a pile of bullshit and spite.”

  Jessa’s eyes flashed. “Don’t judge me. You don’t know me.”

  “You’re damn right, I don’t. I never did. We never did and I doubt Mark did either,” Jaime said coldly, coming to stand over Jessa’s sitting figure.

  “Low blow, Jaime,” Jessa said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Fucking my husband. Taunting your friends with your affair. Revealing secrets we told you as a friend. Those aren’t low blows?” Jaime asked, ticking each offense off on her manicured fingers.

  “What do you want from me? Why are you here?” Jessa asked, moving to rise to her feet in front of Jaime.

  Jaime didn’t back down. “To look your pathetic ass in the face and tell you that it is low class of you to move back into Richmond Hills after the stunts you pulled. Low class and ignorant.”

  Jessa’s eyes became amused. “Not as upstanding as fucking a stripper, huh?”

  Jaime swung.

  WHAP.

  Her hand landed solidly against Jessa’s cheek, sending her flying back down onto the sofa. She moved to get up and Jaime used both her hands to shove her back down before she picked up the goblet of wine and tossed it in Jessa’s face with a wickedly loud splash.

  Jessa cried out dramatically, wiping the liquor from her face with trembling hands. “Get the hell out of my house!” she screeched.

  Jaime stepped back to survey her handiwork. She didn’t know she had it in her. Aria would’ve snatched her bald and dotted both her eyes, but Jaime thought she didn’t do half bad considering she’d never gotten into a fight before.

  “You’re dead to us, Jessa,” she said.

  Jessa laughed. “I’m not dead to Eric, though. Please tell your husband to leave me the hell alone,” she snapped.

  Jaime shrugged. “Who cares, bitch,” she said.

  Jesse snatched her cell phone up from the chair. “Your husband. That’s who.”

  You have thirty saved messages.

  Jaime’s eyes dropped to the BlackBerry in Jessa’s hand. “They’re all from your husband just this week.” Beep.

  “Jessa . . . Jessa pick up. I need you. Don’t do this to me. Don’t leave me, baby.”

  Jaime stiffened at the sound of his voice. It was the same hushed and urgent tones he’d used when he ordered her to do his sexual bidding. It gave her the creeps.

  Message after message after message from just that morning played, each becoming more disturbing than the last.

  Beep.

  “Jessa, I miss the feel of your mouth on my dick. Come get this dick. Don’t make me jack off . . . unless you want to watch again.”

  Jaime’s frown deepened as she played one message where he was crying. No words. Just tears. What the hell?

  Beep.

  “Uh . . . I just jacked this dick. Come and suck up my cum. ”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Jaime said.

  Jessa shrugged as she exited her voice mail box. “I don’t want the pervert. I’m sick of him stalking me. Handle it, please.”

  “You handle it,” Jaime said, her voice hard. “You started it, now finish it.”

  With one last glare and then a shake of her head that was filled with pity, Jaime turned and walked back out of Jessa’s life.

  Aria met her in the street. “What did she say? Did she apologize? Did you slap her? You shoulda slapped her ass. Is there a knot on her head from me tossing that phone at her slick ass? Ooh, I want to beat that bitch ass sooooooooo bad! Oooh!”

  Jaime actually laughed at the animation in Aria’s voice. “She thinks Eric and I are back together.”

  Aria frowned. “She’s dumb.”

  “I let her think that.”

  “You’re dumb, too.”

  Jaime smiled, knowing Aria was just being Aria. “I wanted to know what was going on with them. That perverted bastard wants everything back to the way it was. Degrading me in private and fucking Jessa on the low. Ugh. Ew. She played these voice mails he left on her phone. Just. Done. Just. So. Done.”

  “Maybe he gets off like that.”

  They turned and walked up the middle of the empty street together. “I just want to be free and he’s making it so hard while he’s crying like a bitch and begging his mistress to take him back.”

  “Instead of taking it so hard, why don’t you give it just as hard.”

  They came to stand on the sidewalk in front of Aria’s house. Jaime eyed her.

  “Life is all about the scales,” Aria said, moving her hands up and down, palms up to the blue skies.

  “Tip them in my favor, huh?” Jaime asked, biting the corner of her bottom lip.

  Aria arched her brow. “And with nothing but the truth.”

  Jaime reached in her Vuitton bag for her cell phone and dialed Eric’s number.

  It rang once.

  “Have you come to your senses?”

  Jaime felt repulsed, thinking of the voice mails. “Yes, the night I left you,” she snapped, turning away slightly as Aria gave her some privacy by walking up onto her porch.

  “Listen, let’s meet and talk about getting our marriage back on track.”

  Jaime took a deep breath, shaking her head as she paced. “No, Eric, what we need to get straigh
t is our divorce.”

  “If you think I’m going to front your lifestyle while you’re lying up with strippers your ass is crazy. It’s simple, Jaime, get a job or get your ass back home. Matter of fact, have your ass home today. It’s enough of this.”

  Jaime froze and licked her lips as her eyes squinted like a tiger locking on its prey: the house that used to be her home. “No, motherfucker, your ass is crazy and you’re right this shit ends today. You are forcing my hand.”

  She thought about walking over to the house but a flash of their last meeting ending with bruises on her neck kept her locked where she was.

  “Tomorrow you will receive another settlement offer from my attorney and you will sign it, Eric.”

  He laughed.

  Jaime swallowed back her nerves. “If you don’t then I will release the photos I took of my neck after you assaulted me when I confronted you about your mistress. I can imagine what your parents, your business associates, and your church family will have to say.”

  He said nothing. Image was everything to him. Everything.

  “Now, picture me revealing that weird sex you liked to have, Mr. Whip It Good,” she spat, her eyes blazing. Enough was enough.

  Still, he said nothing.

  “And then we’ll top it all off with those creepy voice mails you left on your mistress’s phone. The way she feels about you right now? I’ll subpoena that bitch and dare her to catch a perjury charge for your ass.”

  Jaime felt stronger with each word. “Adultery and abuse of the woman who gave up a career to stay home and lick your boots. Bullshit. I gave up everything for you. Everything. I’m far from perfect, but I didn’t deserve to be degraded, to be mistreated. Then for you to tell me that I’m ass out on the street with nothing. It’s not happening, Eric.”

  She heard nothing but his slow and steady breathing into the phone. His silence angered her.

  Jaime looked down at her feet and shook her head. “You can sign the settlement agreement or picture me taking you for half of everything, Eric. Your pension, stocks, real estate properties. Everything.”

  “Don’t play this game, Jaime. You’ll lose.”